


And All That Counts (Is Here and Now)

by roseandheather



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 17:09:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6619171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandheather/pseuds/roseandheather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You should get down here more often."</p><p>So he does. </p><p>Ed Harbert observes Leanne Rorish with five people in the ER. Leanne Rorish observes Ed Harbert in the same.</p><p>And they both learn something new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And All That Counts (Is Here and Now)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Iris_Celeno](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iris_Celeno/gifts).



_"You should get down here more often. It's not the same, is it? Up there it's all budgets and numbers and charts. Down here it's people."_

The words stick in his mind for weeks. And to his own surprise, he finds himself taking her advice. Whenever he can get away, he wanders down to the E.R., watching the buzz of his hospital's crown jewel at work.

But perhaps the most fascinating thing about those trips - not that he realizes it for a while, mind you - is what he sees of Leanne herself when he's down there. The people she works with bring out a different side of her - one frequently unique to them, he notes - and it gives him more of an insight into her than he's ever had before. He knows her as a fierce defender of her people, as someone who leaps before she looks, as courageous and instinctive and sometimes foolhardy, but there is so much of her he hasn't seen yet, and more and more he finds himself drawn down there not to watch the E.R., but to watch _her_ \- to learn more about her, more than he even thinks she knows she's showing him.

**1\. Jesse Sallander**

Watching her work with Jesse is pure pleasure. He sees them hugging, bumping fists, trading knowing smiles. He hears them trading truly alarming insults, only the wide grins on their faces giving away how much fun - and how much _love_ \- is in the words.

They truly do love each other, he comes to realize, in a unique, powerful way he can almost touch. It doesn't matter where they are or what they're working on; it's as if they know where the other one is on instinct, without even having to look for each other. They move in perfect concert, can speak without words, and more than once he has seen Jesse put a smile on a devastated Leanne's face with a few quiet words and a hand on her shoulder.

The spike of jealousy he feels at the sight is neither here nor there.

It's in her interactions with Jesse that he first begins to grasp the depths of her loneliness. She looks at her charge nurse, sometimes, as though he's the only thing tethering her to sanity, a haunted look in her eyes that only he can alleviate. But when he's there, he sees more of a joy and a fire in her than he ever has before; and he wonders, briefly, if in watching them together he isn't getting a glimpse of the Leanne she was before her world was torn out from underneath her.

And he silently makes a mental note that - within the limitations of reality - whatever Jesse Sallander wants, Jesse gets.

He'd do ten times as much, he thinks, to keep the Leanne he sees when she's with him.

 

**2\. Christa Lorenson**

Christa Lorenson has always remained a bit of a mystery to him, truthfully. He's wondered, sometimes, how someone so softhearted, who feels so deeply, can survive the bruising career that is emergency medicine. After all, it's a path he, too, has walked; years ago, yes, but he remembers the deaths and the blood and the grief and the feeling of powerlessness. Christa seems far too tender to survive it, and yet there's a steel in the way she works that hints at an inner strength far greater than most people ever see. There's something haunted in her eyes - all too similar to the one in Leanne's, in truth - and the way Leanne seems just a bit more soft and careful with her looks to bear that out. There's a protectiveness in Leanne with Christa that he never sees in her with anyone else; but every so often he can see her talking urgently, too low for him to hear, the two of them sharing meaningful looks over blood-splattered gurneys, and Christa nodding in understanding.

It's not until he finds Christa in the deserted utility corridor, crying her eyes out after losing a little boy to a terminal illness, that he finally hears the story. He apologizes for intruding - of course he does, he doesn't want to pry - but Christa shakes her head and squares her shoulders and explains - briefly, but enough - about the son she'd fought so hard to save, and suddenly her haunted gaze and steel spine make infinitely more sense.

"I'm sorry," he says simply, and means it.

Christa meets his eyes. "Me too," is all she says, but in her gaze he sees that she understands his reaction - and appreciates it.

Never again does he wonder how Christa Lorenson survives E.R. work; she has been to places far darker than this job will ever take her.

But he does wonder, still and always, just how she stayed so _kind._

 

**3\. Mario Savetti**

Leanne handles Mario Savetti with a brisk practicality that looks callous at first glance. She pushes him _hard,_ and her compliments are brief and to the point. But Mario's eyes glow whenever he hears her praise, and Ed quickly comes to understand that Mario prefers her crisp, clear competence to anything warmer. He doesn't handle compliments well, otherwise; a blunt "well done" makes him smile where a more effusive compliment would not. He seems to thrive under Leanne's demanding direction, and the small, obscurely pleased smiles on her face whenever Mario does something particularly well hint that she knows exactly what she's doing and why.

Occasionally he'll backslide, and Leanne will tear him a new one for going 'lone wolf' (her words) again; it's through these occasional tirades that he learns just how _terrible_ Mario's teamwork had been in the early days. But he has also seen Mario calm scared young boys in a way no one else - not even Christa - seems to be able to manage; his straightforward, sometimes blunt explanations do more to keep them calm than anything those with a softer approach have ever tried, and Leanne seems to call him first to deal with the patients who can't bring themselves to trust the E.R. team treating them or those they love.

It's in watching her with Mario that he begins to grasp the true depths of Leanne's gifts as a teacher, and even the stories of Mario's early days - and the difference between the man he hears in those stories and the one he sees on the E.R. floor in front of him - leave him awestruck.

 

**4\. Mike Leighton**

Watching Leanne and Mike dance around each other is an education in and of itself. They're still figuring out the new balance of power, and while he nearly cringes the first time he sees Mike take Leanne to task for interfering with his teaching, the more he watches them, the more convinced he is that Leanne picked her perfect successor. He's not afraid to stand up to her, E.R. Director or not, and like the woman who trained him, he has the true teacher's gift.

Over time they become more comfortable; as the weeks go on he sees them working side by side on the same - usually hellishly difficult - cases, no longer so terribly wary of stepping on each other's toes. Leanne stops interfering so much with his teaching, learning to trust him to do the job right, and Mike learns what issues are his to deal with and what are hers.

Perhaps the most beautiful sight he's ever seen is the two of them together in Center Stage, the patient in front of them trying to die right then and there, with three residents clustered around in various states of confusion. They trade off seamlessly; he'll direct Angus while she directs Malaya, then she'll take over with Angus while he directs Christa, only to hand Christa off to her while he turns to work with Malaya. It's a flawless ballet, and he finds himself just a bit short of breath as he hears the heart monitor jolt back into a steady, regular rhythm and everyone in Center Stage breathes a huge sigh of relief.

With Mike, he sees a Leanne struggling to let go - and a man she trusts enough to help her do just that.

 

**5\. Neal Hudson**

Neal Hudson has always claimed to be a rule-follower.

Frankly, Ed has his doubts about that. Rule-followers don't change jobs to get around hospital regulations, they don't perform unauthorized surgeries, and they certainly don't follow Leanne Rorish on whatever mad quest she's picked up this time.

But watching them working together, he can at least see how Neal convinced himself that he _was_ a rule-follower. Much of their interaction, Ed notices, consists of Leanne coming up with an absolutely outrageous plan and Neal either objecting outright or trying to convince her to take a course that's at least _slightly_ less risky and utterly beyond the bounds of common sense.

And then, almost without fail, Neal will eventually give in, and they'll pull out one more miracle for yet another resident of Los Angeles.

Watching Neal and Leanne together, he learns, is the living embodiment of Leanne's insistence that "Center Stage is where rules go to die."

There are so many things he should come down on them for. _So_ many. But he has seen them snatch life after life back from the very jaws of death - has seen them, as the old movie says, "turn death into a fighting chance to live."

If Leanne is his Dr. McCoy, then Neal is her Captain Kirk - and despite the rules he sees them shattering every single day, he can't bear to rein them in. Because they _do_ make miracles, with Neal tempering her just enough to keep her from 'truly reckless' while giving her the long reins that let her work her magic.

And so he stays silent, and he watches.

And, quietly, marvels.

 

**+1. Ed Harbert**

She never thought he'd actually take her advice. Her "You should get down here more often" had been a wish, a fantasy, an idle whimsy, and no ordinary CEO would ever take her up on it. They'd nod thoughtfully and then retreat back to their offices and spreadsheets and budget reports, a world away from the messy, bloody glory that is a Level One trauma center.

But Ed Harbert, as she is beginning to learn, is no ordinary CEO.

And he does come down - at least once a week, sometimes more, at all hours of the day and night. At first he simply lurks, watching and learning. But eventually, as he starts to become a familiar face, he truly begins to step in - to be a _doctor_ again, and not just a bureaucrat.

He won't touch the critical cases. But sprained wrists, bloody-but-not-so-bad lacerations, broken fingers, the occasional case of strep throat - all these he takes, with willing hands and a warm heart. The nurses look at him askance at first, but eventually they start to come up to him; "this isn't a priority," they'll say, "but this poor kid is really uncomfortable, and the sooner we get her out of here, the better," or "I think I have another one for you, Dr. Harbert, if you have the time."

His answer is almost always "Yes, of course," unless he really does have to go upstairs in the next five minutes - and sometimes not even then will he turn them down.

He isn't a distraction. She can't afford for him to be one. But she starts to develop a sixth sense for him, somehow just _knowing_ whether he's there and, if so, where he is, at any given time.

And eventually she finds herself looking around for him at the oddest moments, and finding herself unaccountably sad when he isn't there with a slight smile or warm eyes or an understanding nod.

"You were right," he tells her quietly in the break room, sipping coffee with one hand and mopping at the vomit on his scrubs with the other. "I've needed this."

She smiles at him because she can't help it, and takes the washcloth from his hand to do the mopping herself. She dabs at the stain with a practiced hand and replies, her voice sodden with admiration, "You were so good with her."

He blushes as they both recall the crying, miserable six-year-old responsible for his current mess. She'd been so brave, but so scared, and Leanne will never forget the sight of Ed smoothing back her sweaty hair, then soothingly rubbing her back and humming an old lullaby she only half remembers the melody of until his dose of IV Zofran finally kicked in and the poor girl stopped throwing up every few minutes.

Abruptly she realizes that she's been dabbing at the same spot for the last several minutes, and that she's done about all she can do to mitigate the damage without the help of a washing machine and some industrial-grade washing detergent. She looks up at him, blinking away suddenly hazy vision, and she nearly sighs when his hand comes up to cover hers.

"Thanks," he says gruffly, half an octave lower than his usual voice.

"No," she admits quietly, and doesn't move her hand away. "Thank _you._ "

And to her own considerable surprise, she means it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> You lot owe this entirely to Iris, who came up with the concept and then nagged (ever so respectfully, of course) and nagged and _nagged_ until I sat my sorry arse down and wrote the damn thing.
> 
> Naturally, I repaid her with reciprocal nagging. ;)
> 
> This turned out to be more character study and less "stuff happening" than I originally intended, but frankly, I can't be sorry. I hope you all aren't, either.


End file.
